Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Our proposal for the expansion of the Nelson-Atkins Museum seeks to reconcile past and present, forging a museum for all. The original Beaux-Arts building, with its classical symmetry and civic grandeur, now stands in quiet dialogue with Steven Holl’s luminous addition to the east. Our design tries to restore equilibrium – balancing the old with the new – through a pair of precise interventions to the north and south. The sweeping, monumental stairs, long a symbol of art’s inaccessibility, are transformed. In their place, an open threshold welcomes visitors of every background, dissolving the notion of art as a privilege reserved for the few. A transparent pavilion – light-filled and porous – erodes the boundary between institution and community, allowing the museum to breathe with the life of the city. Here, architecture becomes an act of invitation, transforming the Nelson-Atkins into a truly civic and accessible space, placed gently within the life of the city.